Three Great HTML5 Animation Tools

Several good HTML5 animation tools have been released to take advantage of the animation features available in HTML5 and other platforms. These tools make it easier for the novice user to create spectacular animations. The content will run in the leading browsers and on the popular mobile devices. Here are three great HTML5 animation tools that should give users a good to develop HTML5 animations.

Adobe Edge – Test out the Beta Version for free

Adobe Edge is an animation tool that develops amazing and creative animations for websites using HTML5. The program has a very easy-to-use and intuitive interface that makes developing animations a breeze. Users with very limited programming skills will be able to develop quality animations in very little time. The animation tool is especially well-suited to develop output that is ideal for mobile platforms. Adobe Edge is thought to be a successor for Flash on mobile devices.

One of the main features of Adobe Edge is the timeline approach it uses to allow web developers to create the animations using drag-and-drop objects and visual layouts to incorporate into HTML5. At each stage in the timeline, features and various items can be added to the composition. Edge combines the coding based platform common to HTML5, CSS and JavaScript with the visual tools that has been common to Flash animations. The great thing about Adobe Edge is that the animations will run in all of the popular web browsers such as Firefox, IE, Opera, Safari and Chrome. Animations can be created that will run on a mobile device such as Androids, Windows Phone 7 and IOS5.

In its early incarnation, Adobe Edge provides a good start as a tool for motion content to use in HTML5. Those familiar with developing Flash animation will find a number of similarities with Edge.

Hippo Animator – a simple .co.uk company, at the lowest price $29.95

Providing a quick and simple way to create HTML5 animation, the Hippo Animator is a user-friendly tool developed by Hippo Studios. Despite a few rough edges, the animator software delivers when it comes to making great-looking animations in a simple manner.

Like several of the other animators such as Adobe Edge and Tumult Hype, the Hippo Animator uses the timeline approach where elements and components are placed in frames that can be converted into a movie that creates the animation. Tools found in the software allow the components to be edited, positioned and effects added as desired by the user. Audio in the mp3 format can be easily added to the timeline to give a polished finish to the animation.

Hippo Animator can develop animated content that can be exported to HTML5 that will function in all the major browsers that include Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome, Safari and Opera. The mobile devices that it works on include the iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows Phone. Hippo Animator is a worthy contender as one of the better HTML5 animator programs.

Hype – Is only available on Mac OS

Hype is a WYSIWYG animation tool that produces animations and interactive web content. While not as robust and full-featured as it could be, the program developed by Tumult Inc. delivers just enough features that make it simple for novice users to produce satisfying output in a short amount of time.

Hype uses a rich text editor and WebKit-based canvas to display various scenes and elements that are combined to produce the final animated output. The scenes consist of images, text, videos and other elements that can be adjusted by the Hype inspector. The rich inspector allows for tweaking of individual components to adjust color, size, alignment and arrangement.

The program is built specifically to run on the Mac OS X operating system. While it requires a Mac running Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later, it can produce HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript content that will run on all the major browsers. The web content produced by Hype is ideal for running on desktop computers, mobile devices such as Android and iPhone, and tablet computers.

Another useful feature offered by Hype is a feature that will allow its output to fall back to a version that will be compatible with as many browsers as possible. Hype displays the reason why the output may not work with a specific browser and shows how it will look in that particular browser in separate window.

Overall, Hype delivers enough features to make it one of the better animation tools available for developing HTML5 web content.

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